Little Embers of Hope
This has been a difficult year for me for a number of reasons, not least of which was the impending doom I felt whenever I considered a rematch between Biden and Trump, and how shaky our chances seemed of staving off that vile orange monster rapist and convicted felon a second time. Even before the debate that I couldn’t bring myself to watch, I felt despair. Like...really? These two were our choices for president again? This was the best our nation could offer us?
The perfect candidate doesn’t exist, and the general population in the United States skews to the right of me, so my true first choice wouldn’t be politically viable in our current reality. ( My “true first choice” is a hypothetical candidate rather than a real person, though boy do I love Bernie Sanders and would have so happily voted for him in 2016 and 2020.) I’m a pragmatist. Under the two-party system that we have, I’m always going to vote for the Democrat in a general election and it will always be a compromise for me. I accept that (while also working to shift things to the left, beginning at the local level). Because the alternative is risking allowing the GOP, which has gone full-blown authoritarian, to win. The danger of not voting for the Democrats is real. Voting is a strategy, not a statement. I’m not telling you a single thing you don’t already know here. It isn’t hyperbole at all to say that if Trump wins, 2024 could well be our last truly free election for generations to come. I would have voted for Biden, but I was in no way excited about it, and I wasn’t at all confident that he could win.
And then Sunday came, and with it news that Biden was dropping out of the race. I turned to social media, as one does, and watched as bewilderment and fear of chaos in my feeds turned to giddy relief when he endorsed Kamala Harris. People are genuinely charged up about her. On each of the too-many platforms that I’m sort of on, where the general mood had been resignation and doom for weeks now, I see tremendous excitement. I see people invested in supporting her and her campaign. For the first time in ages, I see hope.
Hope. I’d almost forgotten what it felt like.
A weight lifted from me on Sunday. Maybe from you, too? We are by no means guaranteed a win in November, but now we have a real fighting chance. We can do this. We outnumber the Republicans. Even with the electoral college (which is fucked up and bullshit), if Democrats and their allies on the left turn out in strong numbers, we will win. The excitement I’m seeing for Harris now is exactly the energy that gets people into those voting booths. You know what? I’m feeling pretty damned excited to vote for her, too. A candidate who can defend the right to abortion with her whole heart? Yes, please.
What we need is a popular front: all varieties of leftists, progressives, and liberals coming together to use our collective power to defeat the fascist far right. It worked in the Second Spanish Republic in 1936 (thought let’s not repeat their civil war that followed, please, holy crap). It worked in France last month. The far right is in ascendance, or trying to be, globally. This is a battle that we’re going to have to wage over and over again in our lifetimes. We don’t get to say “But they said the last election was an all-hands-on-deck emergency to save democracy!” Well. Yeah. It was. It still is. All hands on deck. All out.
I hope that you’re excited to vote for Kamala Harris, because that is bound to feel better than a strategic nose-holding vote. But if you aren’t excited, vote for her anyway. You don’t have to fall in love. Just fucking vote Blue. Yes, I do mean no matter who.
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